


Surprise!

by candybuttons



Series: Now What [1]
Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians - Rick Riordan
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Gen, Vacation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-12
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-25 02:16:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2604887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candybuttons/pseuds/candybuttons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Katie Gardner goes away to a ski lodge in Colorado after the Battle of Manhattan with her mortal friends, the last person she expects to find there is Travis Stoll. Something sinister is going on at the lodge-is it just him playing pranks, or something worse?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

I packed the last of my bags and headed for the car. When I got outside I found my friends Faith Tanner and Kia Michaels waiting inside. Kia, a tall, African-American, swimmer was driving. She had long dark brown hair, down to the middle of her back, and she had deep brown eyes. All of the guys at school wanted her, and she was a notorious flirt. Currently, her boyfriend was Jeffrey O'Brien; he was her 3rd this month. Faith, being the doll that she is, saved the shotgun seat for me, so I climbed in and we started to go. Faith had blonde hair that she kept just longer then her chin and hazel eyes. She must have been the nicest person I knew, outside of camp of course. I should probably introduce myself. My name is Katie Gardner. I am seventeen, and I am a demigod. My mother is Demeter, goddess of the harvest. This past year has been one of the hardest of my life. There was the battle of Manhattan; I lost so many friends and siblings. Sometimes I just feel like crying, which is why when my completely mortal friends asked If I wanted to go to a ski-resort with them over winter break I said "Yes" without a second thought.

"We'll stop at Megan's, then I'll take us to the airport," Kia said, pulling me out of my thoughts. This was a non-demigod vacation I sternly reminded myself. No thinking about sad stuff.

"Hey hey hey party people." I looked out of the car window to see that we'd arrived at Megan's house. Today she had neon green streaks in her red hair. Megan is my friend, but she's a little bit odd. She's loud and crazy and everything that Faith isn't, which is why they get along so well.

"Hi Megan," we chorused. Soon we had her stuff packed and started heading off towards the airport.

"I am so excited about this trip," Megan said after we had gone a little ways.

"Nobody is more excited then I am," I told them, which was probably true, but of course It started a whole round of "No I want it mores" and "No I'm totally exciteds." Yep. I missed these guys.

We reached the airport in about twenty minutes, and got through security in less then that. The plain came soon after we were at the gate, 40 minutes early! And there was almost no one on the plane. We landed in Key Stone, Colorado at about four thirty in the afternoon. Kia got us a taxi (she looked by far the oldest out of all of us) and in record time we were at the hotel.

"We have a reservation," I told the concierge. "Gardner, a suite for four." The man looked us up and down, but shut up when I pulled out a black American express card, a thank-you-for-saving-Olympus gift from my mom. His eyes went wide at the sight and he made no further judgments.

The room was absolutely amazing. There was a kitchen, (which we'd have to fill with cereal as it was about the only thing any of us could cook) a living room (complete with a pull out couch and 68" flat screen T.V.), a bathroom (Jacuzzi!), and two bedrooms (with two twin beds in one, and a king in the other).

"We get to stay here for three weeks? Awesome," Megan said as she crashed onto the couch. I turned towards the rest of them and told them the plan.

"I got us reservations at the restaurant downstairs, they're at 7:00, it's just about five so we have until then to do whatever."

"You've got it all mapped out haven't you Katie," Kia said sarcastically.

"Oh shush you," I replied, laughing slightly. We watched T.V. for about an hour and a half.

"We should probably get ready for dinner, does anyone want to take a shower? We have been traveling all day." I asked. We took turns showering and walked downstairs. We sat down at our table. As it turns out, the restaurant was a buffet. We filled our plates with as much as we could and ate until we couldn't eat any more. Dinner was filled with conversations of who likes who and where we wanted to go to college, no monsters, demons, or titans thank you very much! The only disturbance was when I thought I saw a familiar face, but there was no way that Travis Stoll was here in Key Stone….

"So Katie," Megan asked. "Who's hotter? Thomas Lee or Marion Keaton?"

"What? Ohh, um, Marion I guess."

"Really?"

"Yeah I guess."

"I think Marion is really ugly, can you believe that haircut!"

"I don't think he's ugly at all."

"You know who's not ugly?" Kia said, butting in.

"Please tell me."

"Taylor Lautner, and Tom Felton, and Logan Lerman."

"You have a boyfriend!" Megan yelled, laughing.

"No I don't, you think I'm going to be tied down on a three week trip to a ski lodge? No thank you." At this, the rest of us started laughing. Suddenly, somebody came up behind me.

"Hey Gardner, what's so funny."


	2. Chapter 2

“Hey Gardner, what’s so funny?” I knew that voice.  
“Stoll, what are you doing here?”  
“Vacation. Causing mayhem, pranking Connor, usual Hermes stuff.” He did not just mention Hermes in front of my friends. Luckily, I don’t think they noticed it, they were too busy staring at him.  
“Travis, can I talk to you over there?” I asked.  
“But wouldn’t you rather talk over here? Where there are witnesses?”  
“Travis. Corner. Now.” We walked over to the corner. “These are my mortal friends Stoll. Mortal. No Camp stuff, they don’t know and I don’t plan on telling them.”  
“Cool it Katie. Don’t worry, I won’t blow your cover,” Travis said, making it seem like I was in some James Bond movie or something. “See you ‘round Gardner,” he said and then ran away.  
I walked back to my friends at the table and of course they bombarded me with questions.  
“Who was that?”  
“How do you know him?”  
“Is he your boyfriend?”  
“Can I date him?”  
“My boyfriend? Gods no,” I laughed. “That was Travis Stoll, we go to camp together. And Kia, you can have him.”  
I paid the check and we walked upstairs.  
“I say we play Never Have I Ever,” Megan suggested.  
“Sure.”  
We got a cup out of the pantry, and filled it with orange juice, coke, and an assortment of other things.  
“Never have I ever…left the country,” Kia said. I, having gone to Greece one summer with the other campers, took a sip, but I was the only one.  
“Ooh really?” Faith asked. “Where did you go?”  
“Greece, we went during camp one year.”  
“Was Travis with you?” Megan teased.  
“Maybe…”  
“What kind of camp do you go to anyway?”  
“It’s a, err, it’s an arts camp. I…I take photos, landscapes mostly.”  
“And Travis? What does he do?”  
“He dances, Ballet mostly,” I giggled at the thought of Stoll dancing ballet.  
“Anyway, are we playing Never Have I Ever or grilling me about Travis Stoll? Faith, it’s your turn.”  
“Never have I ever…killed anything, except plants of course. I am a first class plant killer.” I got a little angry at the thought of anybody killing plants, but I quickly shoved it back down. I reached for the cup and took a sip.  
“Katie, you’ve killed something?”  
“Yeah.”  
“What?”  
“Monsters,” and then I added, looking at their horrified faces. “In video games. You didn’t think I meant real life did you? Okay, my turn. Never Have I Ever…” but I never got to finish because somebody knocked on our door.  
“I’ll get it,” Faith said. She got up and opened the door. “Oh, hey. Travis right?”  
“Actually, I’ Connor, Travis’s Brothe-Katie? Hey what are you doing here?”  
“Oh hey Connor. I’m here with some of my friends from school.”  
“Are they…” Connor paused, leaving the question open ended, but it was obvious enough what he meant. He wondered whether or not my friends were demigods.  
“No.”  
“Well, anyway. Me and Travis were going to go down to the hot tub, but we couldn’t find any towels. I knocked on the door next door, you answered and here I am. Do you have any towels?”  
“Only a few.”  
“You’re going down to the hot tub?” Kia asked, butting in.  
“Yeah, sorry, you’re name is…”  
“Kia. Katie, could we go too?” Kia pleaded. As much as I hated the Stoll brothers, Travis especially, Kia and the rest of my friends seemed to really want to go.  
“Sure.” Both Connor’s and Kia’s faces lit up at that. “And I think they have towels for the hot tub and pool downstairs.”  
We all changed into our swimsuits. I wore an olive green Speedo one piece. Megan had a bikini with yellow skulls and multi-colored rainbows. Faith had a frilly beige bikini, and Kia had a teensy-tiny black bikini.  
“Katie, you can’t go out in that!” Kia complained. “Travis will be down there!” As if that would make me want to change into anything else.  
“This is the only suit I have.”  
“You can wear one of mine. All you have to do is ask.”  
“Kia, I’m not changing for Travis.”  
“Fine,” Kia scowled. “But at least take your hair down.”  
“I didn’t even realize it was up.” I took out the offending ponytail and we headed downstairs. The pool was on the floor below the lobby. We went down and saw Travis and Connor waiting in the hot tub for us. We all got in and Travis moved over next to me. Kia and Connor started flirting and Megan and Faith had a splash fight, how they could do that in the hot tub I had no idea.  
“When Connor told me you guys were coming I almost didn’t believe it.”  
“Yeah, Kia almost had to force me into it. Voluntarily hanging out with you? No thank you,” I said sarcastically.  
“Ha ha.” I looked at him and saw that he was staring longingly at…no, not me. The big pool, to be more specific, the curly slide.  
“Want to go on it?” I asked him. His eyes lit up, a mischievous smile appeared on his face, and in ten seconds flat he was at the top of the slide.  
“Coming?” He called.  
“Of course!” The slide was about two stories high, maybe even three. It twisted around for about two thirds of it and then fell away, leaving you to just fall into the water. There were also two diving boards, one high and one low, and a smaller slide for little kids. For a ski resort in Key Stone, Colorado, it had a pretty awesome pool.  
“Bet you I can make a bigger splash,” Travis called.  
“Oh you’re on!” He jumped in and the splash was huge. I should have known better then to make a bet with a child of Hermes. I slid down the slide after, and I have to say, my splash came nowhere near it. I swam over to where he was in the shallow section of the pool.  
“Now you have to kiss me.”  
“Nice try,” I splashed him in the face.  
“Did you just, splash me?” Travis asked, the surprise evident on his face. “Big mistake.” He pinned me against the wall with one hand and splashed me with the other. Then, the nerve, he started tickling me! I started laughing my head off and soon I could feel everybody’s eyes on us. Quickly, to get out of his hold, I opened my palm and a little vine appeared, creating a barrier between me and Travis.  
“Hey no fair!” He called out.  
“All’s fair in love and war,” I replied, smirking at his outraged expression. Then, what I had just said hit me like a ton of bricks. “All’s fair in love and war,” Love! Travis and I were definitely not in love. No way. Next question please. He seemed to realize what I’d said as well because his eyes were shining with a new kind of light. Before I could react he pecked me on the cheek and ran off into the hallway, with Connor close on his heels.  
I turned to my friends. “What just happened?” I asked them. Faith and Megan shook their heads, but Kia turned and said: “You were totally just flirting with Travis Stoll.”


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up the next day in the twin bed on the left side of the room confused. I couldn't like him. Could I? No, there was too much history. There was no way that I could like him. Clearing my head of all things Stoll related I got up. I looked out of my window at the beautiful landscape. A thin coating of snow covered most of the grass; it looked like a scene from a picture book. I tore myself away from the window and started to get ready for the day. I woke up Kia who was sleeping in the other twin bed, and then I moved onto Megan and Faith in the other room. after I woke them all up I started to get dressed. I put on a loose fitting green shirt and some jeans. I went into the bathroom and brushed my teeth.

"Katie you coming?" Megan called.

"Connor is probably already down there," Kia added.

"Calm down I'm coming," I yelled back. As I was leaving the room I grabbed a ponytail holder, but decided against putting my hair up. As it turns out, Kia was right. We walked into the breakfast place and saw the Stolls sitting at a mostly empty table. I walked over and Travis patted the seat next to him with a hopeful look on his face. Rolling my eyes, I sat down next to him. Kia sat down next to Connor and Faith and Megan sat across from them.

"Hey Gardner, ready to ski?"

"No. I'm just here in Key Stone for the shopping," I replied, my tone practically oozing sarcasm.

"'Cause I am. Every year my mom took me and Connor skiing over presidents day weekend, but the hills in New York are nothing compared to the mountains here!" (a/n I have no idea where Travis is supposed to be from, so let's just say New York 'kay? Also, yes there is skiing in New York.) He got so excited when he talked about skiing; it was kind of cute, in like a puppy dog kind of way though. Not a boyfriend kind of way. No, absolutely not. Why on earth would I think that?

"So will you?"

"What?" I'd been so absorbed in my thoughts that I hadn't even heard Travis start talking. "Sorry I wasn't listening."

"Got lost in my eyes? Don't worry, I'm used to it." I scowled. "Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to race when we got to the trails."

"You might be a great skier, but I grew up in Georgia. (a/n once again, no idea where she's actually from.) There's no skiing in Georgia, at least where I lived."

"Then I'll just have to teach you, won't I?"

"I suppose you will, but first we should eat something." I went over to the buffet area and got a bowlful of scrambled eggs and cereal, mostly cereal. Travis saw the cereal and laughed.

"What?" I asked him.

"Cereal."

"Your point?" I once again asked, giving him my shut-up-or-I'll-make-you-shut-up glare. Needless to say, he shut up.

"Hey Katie," Kia called from across the big round table. "I was thinking that maybe for my birthday we could go to that restaurant you were telling us about. Maybe Travis and Connor could come."

"Yeah sure, that sounds like fun."

"What restaurant?" Travis asked.

"Oh, it's this fondue place that I read about online. It got amazing reviews. It's up on this secluded mountain top so you have to take a gondola to get there. Did I mention that they have forty-two types of Cheese fondue? Along with thirteen different chocolate fondues?"

"Yep, we're coming," Connor said quickly. I could almost see him drooling at the thought of chocolate fondue.

************************Page Break************************************

I put on my skis and started to skate the way Travis had attempted to teach me. it took about ten seconds for me to fall over. Luckily, Travis was there to catch me. Wait…did I just think that it was lucky that Travis was there to catch me? This mountain air really must be messing with my brain. After about a half an hour, he deemed me ready for the bunny hill. I mastered the bunny hill an about ten minutes. Finally, we were ready to hit the top of the mountain. Connor and Kia were both great skiers, it was obvious that they were both only still down here because of us. Faith was having an even harder time than I was, so we found an instructor, Joshua, to help her out.

After tackling monsters, you'd think that a little something small like getting off of the chairlift wouldn't scare me, but it did. The thought of it scared me so much that I didn't even notice how small the seats were. Travis had the man slow it down a little bit for me so that I was able to make it. Kia and Connor had taken the one before us, we probably wouldn't see them again until dinner. The chair came and, to my surprise and delight, I sat down at exactly the right time. The chair was really small, I could feel Travis's thigh pressed up against mine and I must say, the feeling wasn't entirely unpleasant. I made the mistake of looking down.

"Agh!" I cried out in shock.

"Katie! Katie! What's wrong?" I pointed down. "You can't really be scared of that?" I nodded my head yes. "Katie, you've killed monsters. You have powers. And besides, you have me." I looked in his eyes, and surprisingly I was reassured. I knew he wouldn't let me fall.


	4. Chapter 4

I got off the chairlift with a surprising burst of grace, which had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Travis holding my hand.

"Remember, make the pizza with your skis." Travis instructed me. "Stay to the right, that's the easiest trail. If you veer to the left you might go on to the blue part. You go down first, I'll follow behind you to make sure you don't get into any trouble." I nodded my head and started to slowly go down the mountain. I could hear Travis coming behind me. When had he gotten so mature? Skiing behind me so that he would be able to make sure that I didn't get hurt? This was not the same boy who'd put Easter bunnies on the roof of the Demeter cabin so many years ago. What was that saying? War changes people. War had definitely changed Travis for the better. I made it down to the bottom of the hill. In the sunlight, his brown hair gleamed gold and his blue eyes were full of life. His mouth was half open in a smile, and he was concentrating on the snow below him so he didn't see me staring.

"See why I like skiing now, Gardner?" Travis asked with a smirk once he reached where I was standing.

"Yeah," I said smiling. "I do."

"Katie are you okay?"

"Yes, why?"

"Well for one thing you're not staring at me like I'm the most repulsive thing you've ever seen." Travis replied sarcastically, but I could hear a ring of truth in his words. Had I really always been that awful to him?

"That's just because you can't see under my ski goggles," I told him with a smile. "Can we go again?" We skied together for the rest of the morning, until about one-thirty when Travis demanded we stop for lunch. Apparently he "Was a growing boy who needed his chicken nuggets." Truth to be told, I was hungry too, but I hadn't wanted to end the fun that we were having on the mountain. He got his chicken nuggets and a coke, and I got a salad with a hot chocolate. We got to the register and I whipped out my credit card.

"You go pick out a table, I'll pay," Travis told me.

"You pay for your food. I'll pay for mine."

"Isn't the guy supposed to pay? And since I'm the guy, that means I pay."

"That's only on a date."

"Your point? Just let me pay." Travis grabbed my tray and pushed me towards the seating area. I chose a table with an amazing view of the mountains. I sat down and looked out the window. The view was absolutely incredible. The mountains went on for as long as I could see; there were little forests covering some of them and I could at least five other ski resorts. I saw a couple together outside of the restaurant. They were holding hands and laughing. I immediately thought of Travis. This hardly counted as a date did it? The way that I'd thought of him had definitely changed over this vacation, but I didn't like him like that did I?

"Miss me?"

"No."

"Oh, Gardner. That hurts."

"Can I have my salad?"

"Only if you say you missed me."

"Fine Stoll," I grumbled. "I missed you. Now, can I have my salad?"

"No."

"I'm beginning to think that you just didn't have enough money and now you're trying to make sure that I don't find out that you never actually bought me the salad."

"No I bought you the salad."

"Where's the proof?"

"Here," he said, pulling the salad out of the plastic bag. "In fact, it looks good. I think I'll have some."

"You don't get to eat my salad Stoll."

"Oh yeah, watch me."

"Give me my salad."

"First you have to kiss me."

"Just give me the salad!"

"Not until you kiss me."

"And then I can have my salad?"

"Probably."

"You're impossible."

"You're in desperate need of a salad."

"You know that I could just walk over to the food area and buy myself a new salad, right?"

"But you won't, because secretly you know you want to kiss me." He was right. Just as I started to lean over, my phone rang. It used to be that using phones was bad because they attracted monsters, it was like sending up a flare. "Fresh demigod! Get your fresh demigod! Right here, completely unprotected!" But Annabeth, one of the smartest demigod children of Athena ever in my opinion, invented this chip that we could put in our phones to make them safer.

"I have to take this, it's Megan." She could not, even if she had planned it, had worse timing. "Hey it's Katie, what is it Megan?"

"Katie, my brother's coming!"

"Coming where?"

"Out to Key Stone! Our mom made last minute plans with her friends to go to Fiji so he has to come with us!"

"That's fine, he can room with Travis and Connor. They won't mind."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, they're used to having a full house. Talk to you tonight at dinner."

"Kk Bye."

"Travis, would you mind getting a new roommate?"

"Well that depends, what did you have in mind?"

"Megan's brother is coming out to Key Stone, and he can't live with us. So of course, I volunteered you."

"I'm honored."

"I have to worn you about Jackson. He's fourteen, and, well he actually reminds me a bit of a younger version of you. He pulls pranks on Megan all of the time and, and has a bit of a crush on me. It's kind of annoying," then I added as an afterthought. "Can I please have my salad?"


	5. Chapter 5

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I never moved onto a blue course, but Travis said that I probably would be able to attempt one in a couple of days. We took the shuttle back towards the lodge.

"Look Travis," I said once we were on the shuttle. "The sun's setting."

"Yeah, it's beautiful." We sat the rest of the shuttle ride in a comfortable silence.

"Last stop, everybody off," the bus driver called. We excited the bus and took the elevator up to the third floor. Travis walked me to my door.

"So instead of going down to dinner tonight do you guys want to eat in our room?" Travis asked.

"Sure. We'll meet you there in about half an hour." Travis left and I went into my room. I'm not sure what I expected to find, but I'm sure that what I walked into wasn't it. Faith and the guy that we'd hired to teach her to ski were making out on the couch. I cleared my throat.

"Umm. Hi." They instantly broke apart. I don't know who was more surprised, Faith or me. If somebody had asked me which of my friends I would expect to find making out with a guy that they barely knew, Faith would have been my last choice. "Do you want to introduce me to your friend?"

"Sure. Katie, this is Josh. Josh meet Katie." I looked at Josh. He seemed nice enough. He had smiling blue eyes and black curly hair that went to about the top of his ears. He had a nice tan, which I later learned was from living in California his whole life. He was about our age, sixteen or seventeen probably. He was tall, a little over six feet. Hopefully he was good enough for Faith, otherwise, well, I'd only seen Megan really angry once and that was when her dad left them after finding out about her mom's affair with some businessman. It wasn't pretty.

"Hi, I'm Josh."

"Katie," I turned to Faith. "Travis invited us over to his room for dinner tonight. I said we'd go. You can bring Josh if you want to."

"Actually," Josh replied. "I have to be somewhere tonight, maybe another time. I should actually be heading out." He kissed Faith on the cheek and walked out.

*************************************Page Break************************************

"Travis, Connor let us in," I yelled, knocking on the door.

"One minute," I heard somebody reply from inside. "Coming." Travis Stoll opened the door.

"Hi. Welcome to Casa Stoll." Travis said.

"You don't know Spanish," I replied.

"σκάσε!*"

"What language was that?" Kia asked.

"Greek," we replied at the same time.

"How do you know Greek?" Megan asked.

"Camp," I told them truthfully.

"Why don't you come inside?" Travis asked. We came in and sat on the couches.

"What kind of camp do you guys go to anyway?" Faith asked once we were seated.

"I told you; it's an arts camp. I take photos, Connor…makes films, and Travis dances ballet." At that moment Travis's face was absolutely the funniest thing that I think I have ever seen. "Travis, why don't you dance for us?"

"No, I'm okay."

"Yeah Travis, dance for us," Connor said.

"Come on dance!"

"Don't be shy!"

"We won't laugh!"

"Come on, Mr. Ballerina."

He was saved from having to dance for us by a knock on the door, signaling that our food had arrived. It was almost silent in the room while we ate. They'd ordered more food then an army could eat, much less six teenagers. I chose a salad off of the cart. I held it up so Travis could see and raised my eyebrows.

"We should play Truth or Dare," Kia announced. "Travis, Truth or dare?"

"Dare."

"I dare you to…dance for us." Travis got up, shuffled his feet around in what might have been a jig, and took a bow.

"Thank you, Thank you." We all started laughing.

"Okay Connor, Truth or Dare."

"Dare."

"I dare you to…run in the hallway only in your underwear."

"Too easy brother. Too easy." He stripped down and ran outside. The dares kept getting worse and worse as the rounds went on. Kia had to prank call the janitorial staff of the hotel and tell them to clean up a toilet that exploded. Faith had to throw a French fry out of the window at an unfortunate couple that walked below. Megan had to get her hair wet and stay outside until it started to freeze. I was the only one not chosen; I'd been at too many sleepovers with them and so they knew that I wasn't going to choose dare.

"Travis, Truth or Dare," Megan asked. There was an evil glint in her eyes, and at that moment I got scared for him.

"Dare," he replied.

"I dare you to spend seven minutes in heaven with Katie." So that was what she'd been planning. A way to force me to do a dare without m actually having to pick dare. I gave her a glare and followed Travis into the closet. He walked in, in front of me and closed the door.

"Look Katie," He said. "I'm not going to make you kiss me. Just tell me one thing, why do you hate me?" And I know that there were a million reasons why I didn't like him. That stupid Easter bunny prank; all of the little annoying things that he and his brother had done over the years; the times where I'd just wanted to drop-kick him across the camp, but in that moment. Standing with him in that dimly-lit closet, I couldn't think of any.


	6. Chapter 6

The next few days passed much in the same way. Travis and I skied on the greens, and occasional blue; Faith and Josh spent more time making out then skiing, but she was happy and that was all that mattered; Kia and Connor raced down the blacks and double blacks; Megan, well she stayed in the hotel, (she hates athletics with a passion). Soon, it was time to pick up Jackson. Travis drove because he was the only one with a car. It was a blue dodge sports car with two rows of seats. I sat shotgun, as I was the only one who knew how to work the G.P.S. Megan sat in the back; it was her brother that we were picking up after all.

"I can't believe that Jack has to come," Megan said after we were all seated in the car. "This vacation was supposed to be my chance to get away from him. Now he's coming."

"Everything happens for a reason Megan," I told her. That phrase had been something that was bothering me this whole vacation. As much as I enjoyed hanging out with Travis and Connor, and I enjoyed it much more then I thought humanly possible, two demigods don't just end up in the same place randomly. We'd just defeated Kronos, and while I hadn't seen any monsters yet, I was a little bit on edge. I subconsciously fingered the leaf necklace that mom had given me last year. When I unclasped it, it turned into a glowing three-foot long bronze sword. Hopefully, this vacation I'll never need to use it, I thought to my self.

Of course, I was wrong. We picked Jackson up from the airport without incident. He barely looked up from his phone the whole car ride back to the lodge, I guess he wanted to be here about as much as Megan wanted him here. Looking at Travis and him, they really did look pretty similar. They had the same upturned eyes, except Jackson's were light brown instead of blue. They had the same brown hair, though Jackson wore his in a faux-hawk to annoy his mother. They were both tall and fit, though Jackson cared a lot more about looking cool then Travis did. He was wearing an aeropostale shirt with sagging levi's jeans and nikes. Travis on the other hand was wearing, well, not that.

"I hear you play pranks on people," Travis said, interrupting the awkward silence that had enveloped the car. "What's the best one that you've played?" At the mention of pranks Jackson immediately opened up.

"A lot of them. Once, I put bleach in Megan's hair. It stayed blonde for a month. Another time I switched all of Megan's clothes with the same clothes, but in a smaller size…" The list went on and on. Each prank worse then the last, and I could see Travis nodding his head approvingly. I was right; those two were going to get along famously. I had already heard most of these pranks from Megan, but somehow it was different hearing them from the mastermind rather than the victim. In no time at all, we were back at the lodge. Travis helped Jackson unload his baggage and the two of them walked away, leaving Megan and I in the parking lot. Megan smiled.

"Maybe Jack won't be such a problem after all."

"Yeah," I replied, but I wasn't really paying attention. Was that businessman over there staring at us with unusual interest? No, I decided. It's probably just paranoia, so soon after the Titan war, but still…

"Are you coming? Or are you planning to just stand there all day. We have to go get ready, Kia's birthday party is in an hour."

"Oh, sorry. Just thinking. Does there seem to be anything off about that business man to you?"

"Umm, no. Aside from the fact that he probably spent about three hundred dollars on that coat, three hundred dollars that should have been spent helping the hungry, but I suppose that's most businessmen, there'd probably be something wrong with his if he spent his money where it was actually deserved." 

"Okay, thanks." We walked inside, was it me or did his eyes follow us? I scurried past him as fast as I could and made Megan do the same; I told her that I just really wanted to get ready for tonight. When we made it to our room I breathed an audible sigh of relief. I thought of telling Travis, but then I shook my head. I'd never needed his help before; I was Katie Gardner for Gods' sake! One vacation certainly didn't change years of independence, and besides, he'd probably just think that I was being unreasonable, I mean, most monsters fought in the titan war, and lost! They didn't reform that quickly. Suddenly I felt hands covering my face. My first instinct was to elbow him in his soft spot, but he saved himself by speaking.

"Guess who?" It was just Travis being annoying,

"What do you want, Stoll?" I asked him, rolling my eyes as i turned to face him.

"And here I was, thinking that we were on first-name basis, bus sadly I was mistaken."

"What do you want, Travis? Is that better?" 

"Much. I was just wondering when and where you wanted to meet for Kia's birthday."

"How 'bout right here, in about an hour? Would that work?"

"See you then."

"Hey Travis," I called out as he was walking away. "How's Jackson?"

"He seems really cool, I think he would get along well with the Hermes cabin."

The cable car was small, a little too small for seven people. So small that I ended up sitting on Travis's lap a little bit, not completely, just enough to make both of us uncomfortable. We were seated it a 'C' shape, with the door being the gap. Faith and Megan were on one side of me, and Travis the other. Jackson sat in between Travis and Connor, and Kia sat on Connor's other side. As we got out of the gondola my heart nearly stopped. The man from earlier was standing outside, like he was waiting for us.

"Travis," I whispered urgently. "That man, I think he might not be a man. I think, I think he's a monster." Sometimes, I really hate being right. He removed his hat and I recognized him from the description that Annabeth had given me years before. He was tall and bulky. One of his eyes was blue, the other brown. It made perfect sense, according to Annabeth, Mr. D killed him two years ago; he would have missed most of the Titan War.

"Megan, Kia, Faith, you go ahead. There's something that we need to take care of." My only hope was that he'd leave them alone; they were only mortals. I would have sent Jackson ahead with them, but something held me back. Maybe there was a reason why he loved to prank and looked so much like the Stoll's…

"Leave us alone," I told the beast in as loud a voice as I could muster. "The war's over. We won. You lost."

"Go back to Tartarus where you belong," Connor added. The manticore didn't seem to like that last comment, because he started to attack.

"Jackson! Get back!" I yelled, and for once, he obeyed. I unclasped my necklace and Travis and Connor took out their swords. It took about twenty minutes of dodging flying missiles, earth magic, and great swordsmanship before we finally had him cornered. With one well-aimed strike, Connor stabbed him in the stomach and he turned into dust. I turned around and faced Jackson.

"We can explain, I promise."


	7. Chapter 7

"We can explain, I promise." I told a panicked Jackson. He always looked so sure of himself, so... cocky, that was the word. I'd never seen him like this before. He looked as if you'd just told someone that his entire life was a lie, which honestly, in this case, it kind of was. "Jackson, we all went through this too."

"This is a dream. This is a dream. Please tell me this is a dream," he said so quietly I could barely hear him. It worried me to see him so broken. He might have been one of the most annoying adolescents that I've ever known, but seeing him like this…

"You know the Greek gods?" I asked him. He nodded. "Well they're alive and well. I am the daughter of Demeter, goddess of the harvest, and the Stolls here are sons of Hermes. We think that you might be a demigod-half mortal, half god- like us. But we should talk about this more later, right now we have a birthday party to attend."

We walked in silence to the restaurant. It was snowing and the world looked so peaceful. If I didn't know any better I would have thought that this was Olympus. The mountains looked so majestic with their snow covered trees and trails winding down the side. I was so busy looking at the view that I almost walked into a pole.

"Katie!" Travis called out at the last minute, jolting me out of my thoughts. I took this opportunity to notice the pole in front of me and blushed.

"Thanks."

"It's what I'm here for," he replied with a smirk.

"Shouldn't there be more people here?" Jackson asked once we entered the restaurant. I looked around. He was right. Aside from Megan, Faith and Kia who were sitting at a table, it was completely empty. 

"Travis, does this feel off to you?" I asked him as we walked towards their table, abandoning all pretenses of being independent. We were all stuck in this mess together; I might as well work together with them. Suddenly, I heard I rumbling noise. I looked outside, the light flurries from about ten minutes ago had turned into a full-on snowstorm. Connor must have seen it to because he ran and tried the door.

"It's frozen shut," he said when he couldn't open the door. As soon as he took his hands off of the door, the whole thing became covered in a layer of ice. I quickly scanned the room and noticed that all of the other exits appeared to be covered the same way. 

I looked at Travis and then back towards my friends. "This is not good," I said as an idea occurred to me. "Maybe I can open the door."

"Katie, if Connor couldn't open the door, why do you think that you can?" Megan asked, but I ignored her. I wasn't planning on using strength. I walked over to the door of the restaurant and opened my palm. Luckily, for decorative purposes, there were two medium-sized hydrangea plants sitting in pots by the door. I moved my hands up and concentrated all of my will power; I could feel everybody's eyes on me. I pushed my hands forward and the Hydrangeas followed my lead. They rose up and grew to about three times their length, vines sprouting off the stems. They pushed up against the door and immediately turned to ice. I walked back to the rest of them. My friends were all staring at me with expressions of horror. Seeing their shocked faces I shrugged. "Guys, I haven't been completely honest with you."

"You, you can move plants with your mind," Kia said. "There's nothing strange about that. Are you one of the x-men?"

"Remember how I told you my mom left my dad and I when I was little and was never seen again? That's only half of the truth. Maybe even less than that. My mom did leave my dad, but I have seen her since then. My mother was, is, Demeter. Yeah, that Demeter." I knew that they all knew whom I was talking about considering we'd just finished our school's Greek unit. "The Stolls here are sons of Hermes, and Megan, I think Jackson might be one too." Megan looked as if we'd hit her in the head with a bowling ball, and Kia and Faith didn't look much better.

"Now," I said, going back into practical Katie mode. "If we're going to survive…"

"Going to survive?" Faith asked, her voice barely more than a squeak. Oh right. Being in a life or death situation was new for them.

"Would you rather the alternative?" I asked her, the three of them were quiet after that. "Kia and Connor, go check in the back. See if you can find food and water, we need water so we can Iris Message camp. Jackson, go with Megan and Faith and see if there's anywhere that we can sleep. Travis and I will scout the place and look for any other monsters. Remember, do not, under any circumstances, touch any of the ice. My hydrangeas turned to ice as soon as they made contact, and I can't imagine that any of us would fare differently. If you need anything, yell." We went our separate ways until I heard Connor shout. We ran over towards the source of the noise. The entire kitchen was covered in a sheet of ice, similar to what was covering the door. I unclasped my necklace and poked the ice with my sword, only for it to immediately melt into a pool of water. I took one of my emergency drachmas out of my wallet, thank the gods I came prepared, I thought to myself. I threw the coin into the water and said the words:

"O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me Annabeth Chase" Immediately a picture of Annabeth and Percy Jackson making out filled the air. I cleared my throat and they sprung apart. Way to go, Katie. the same awkward situation twice on the same vacation with two different couples. I was on a roll.

"Gods, Katie. Give us a warning next time you do that," Annabeth said irritably.

"We need help, we're trapped in a fondue restaurant in Colorado and we've already fought a manticore. I'm with three of my mortal friends and I think that my friend Megan's little brother might be a demigod." Annabeth's eyes seemed to darken dramatically.

"Katie. Things at camp aren't great either. The gods have gone silent."


	8. Chapter 8

"What do you mean 'The Gods have gone silent?'" I asked Annabeth.

"I mean what i said. The Gods. Silent. Mr. D was recalled to Olympus. Rachel can't sense anything. Nobody can hear from their parents. They've simply stopped talking to us."

"So you can't spare anybody to come help us?" I asked her. She shook her head sadly.

"New demigods are popping up all over the place, we're stretched thin as it is. I wish we could help…no seaweed brain! Don't touch that…" I heard a loud crash coming from off of the screen. "Sorry Katie, seaweed brain got himself trapped under about fifty hard-cover books. See what i mean about being stretched thin?" She wiped her hand through the message and disappeared. I turned around and faced Travis and Connor.

"Look's like we're on our own." Both of them looked worried, it was a look I'd only seen Travis once before: during the battle of Manhattan when Connor was hurt, and I'd never seen it on Connor. The four of us (Me, Travis, Connor, and Kia) walked back towards where Jackson, Megan, and Faith were sitting.

"Did you find anywhere for us to sleep?" I asked them.

"Yeah look," Megan said, pointing at a slightly rickety set of stairs tucked into the back of the dining room. We walked up the stairs and found what appeared to be a small apartment.

"The owner of the restaurant must have lived up here, I wonder where he is now…" Faith said, but stopped short as she walked into the kitchenette. "Katie!' She screamed, panicked. I followed her into the little kitchen and stopped short. Covered in a sheet of ice was, what I assumed to be anyway, the owner of this house. He was a short, stocky bald man with thick-framed glasses.

"Maybe we should stay out of the kitchen," I suggested.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~Page Break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

None of us were very hungry, so we ended up skipping dinner that night. Travis, Connor and I agreed to split the watch. Travis would tale the first watch and I the second, Connor would take the last watch. We agreed that the three of us would sleep on the floor, Megan, Kia, Faith, and Jackson could divvy up the King bed and couches however they wanted. I settled down to sleep in my little corner of the pashmina living-room rug. It couldn't have been more than five minutes later that Travis woke me up.

"Katie, wake up."

"Uhh," I replied intelligently. "What time is it?"

"Two o'clock in the morning."

"Already? It feels like I just laid down."

"It's been three hours."

"Oh." Travis turned and started to walk away.

"Hey Travis."

"Yeah?"

"What do you think is going on?"

"What do you mean?"

"With the gods going silent and all of that."

"I don't know, but I do know that we'll get through it."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I know you Katie."

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"We're going to get through this. You won't let anything else happen. You'll stop it with the force of willpower alone." I didn't have to be able to see him to see him smirk at that. 

"You're just saying that," i responded, rolling my eyes at him in the dark. 

"No, I really mean it. Katie, you won't let any of us get hurt. Even me, it's just the kind of person you are. You're protective, smart, caring, kind, beautiful, talented…"

"What was that one?" I asked him. I could almost see him blushing in the pitch-black room.

"Talented."

"No, before that."

"Kind."

"After that."

"I told you, talented."

"You said I was beautiful."

"Well you know I think you're great. I must have asked you out what, 5, 6, times in the last few years?"

"I always thought that was a joke. You know, another way of annoying me. And Travis, nobody's ever called me beautiful before," I said, turning away from him, it didn't really matter though. We were sitting up, leaning our backs on the wall and if I wasn't able to feel his leg pressed up against mine I never would have known that he was there; it was that dark.

"Not even your father? Or what about Justin? Didn't you two go out for a while?"

"No, never. Justin, honestly, was mostly to get you to stop annoying me. In the end he dumped me because he was annoyed at you, so i suppose that didn't work. And my dad has my stepmother, Rose. Now, he barely even talks to me. Before Demeter he was a devout Christian, so she completely turned his life around. I know he loves me, but he's just trying to get back to where he was before Demeter, before me. I represent everything he grew up hating. Paganism and all that."

"That's horrible Katie, I never knew."

"Well it's not like I advertise the fact, and it's not like we even talk to each other, and besides, Rose is awesome. She helps me garden sometimes in the spring, it's nice."

Instead of responding, Travis leaned in, gods only knew how he knew where my face was, and pressed his lips against mine. In too short a time he pulled away. I could almost see the blush on his face, and I knew that I probably didn't look any different. When I didn't say anything he stammered something along the lines of:

"I...uh…well…I…uh…should…you know…sleep…it's night…" I nodded my head; which of course he couldn't see, but I didn't trust myself to speak. I would probably end up saying something about as eloquent as him. I heard his heavy footsteps clobber down the hall and closed my eyes. I curved my mouth into a smile and sat there, just sitting with my eyes closed and smiling for what felt like an eternity. Thoughts of Travis filled my mind. Nobody had ever had this effect on me. Ever. That knowledge alone was as annoying as he was. I must have fallen asleep, because in what felt like a minute my watch was beeping. 4:45 am, time to wake up Connor.

"Connor!" I called, semi-gently (okay, so not really all that gently) shaking him awake.

"Five more minutes mom," he mumbled. 

"Connor, it's time for your shift." With that, he seemed to register the situation and his eyes flittered open.

"I'm awake, Katie. Were there any disturbances?"

"Nothing."

"Is Frozone still an ice sculpture?"

"Yeah," I yawned. "I'm going to go back to sleep."

"You do that." With my eyes half-closed I walked over to the corner where I'd been sleeping before my shift. Mostly asleep, I curled up in a ball and was fully asleep in no time.


	9. Chapter 9

I woke up at around nine-thirty in the morning. "We're going to escape today," I told myself as I sat up. I made my way to the bedroom to check on my friends, I smiled when I noticed Megan hugging Jackson in her sleep. The whole 'Demigod' thing had shocked everyone, but Megan definitely took it the worst- Not that I couldn't blame her or anything. I walked back into the main room and found Travis and Connor talking. I saw Travis and I immediately thought of last night, did he really kiss me? Or was it just a stress dream? I felt myself turning red at the thought that I'd imagined myself kissing Travis Stoll.

"Hey Katie," Connor called. "Are the rest of them still sleeping? I saw you go into the master bedroom."

"Yeah everyone's still sleeping; I say we give them about a half an hour, then we can wake them up."

"That sounds good."

"Connor, would you mind giving Travis and I a minute? See if you can see any breaks in the ice. There's something I need to talk to him about," and by the way Travis wouldn't meet my eyes, he knew exactly what I wanted to talk to him about, eliminating the thought that I'd simply imagined last night.

"Sure," then, he winked. "But if you're planning a surprise party, I hate chocolate cake." He walked out of the room and I rolled my eyes.

"Hey, Travis," I tentatively said. "We need to talk."

"I'm sorry about last night. I shouldn't have, you know, kissed you. Maybe we should just forget about it and focus on getting out of here. I know you're probably mad at me and if you want…" He started to ramble nervously, so I quickly grabbed his hand to shut him up.

"Travis, I'm not mad at you."

"You're not? I think i need to write this down or take a picture, I mean, you're always mad at me." I punched him lightly on the arm; leave it to a Stoll to make a joke out of this.

"Well this time I'm not, not right now anyway."

~~~~~~~~~~Page break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The seven of us were gathered around a table downstairs eating sunflower seeds (courtesy of yours truly), and talking about what how to get out of the restaurant.

"We've tried all of the exits, they're all coated in that same sheet of ice. Judging by the way the Hydrangeas froze on contact, or the way Mr. frozen has stayed, well, frozen for as long as we've been here, we can assume that we can't get out using any of them. Now, we can either try to wait until somebody comes and saves us, or we could try to break through the walls."

"Wait! Katie, I just thought of something. When you poked the ice in the kitchen with your sword it melted, that's how we made the Iris Message. What happens if you try the door?" 

"Travis that's a great idea," I said. "Why didn't I think of that?" I walked over towards the door and unclasped my necklace. I took the sword and ran it along the frame of the door. Immediately the ice covering the whole of the door melted. I turned back towards the rest of my friends and called:

"We're out!" They got out of the booth and ran over towards me. I pushed the door open with my sword and immediately my excitement vanished. Standing outside of the door were three hellhounds.

"Get back," Connor yelled. I ran at the nearest hellhound and started slashing, dodging and ducking not paying attention to anything but that slobbering hellhound in front of me. Thanks to training sessions with Percy and Mrs. O'Leary, a hellhound was one of the monsters I was best at defeating. I trapped all of its legs (arms? I don't know what the anatomically correct name for the limbs of a hellhound is) with vines, ran underneath it's stomach and stabbed up. I turned back around and saw Connor standing over Travis who was lying on the floor. I ran over. Through the fabric of his button-down shirt and down jacket I could see blood coming from his shoulder.

"Connor, what happened?"

"Something happened while I was fighting one of the hellhounds. I thought I saw someone over there, and I got distracted," Connor told me. "If Travis hadn't stepped in and pushed me out of the way, I probably wouldn't be here to tell the tale."

"Somebody needs to do something about his arm," Jackson yelled.

"Katie you did a rotation in the hospital wing of Camp Half-Blood with the Apollo kids. Is there anything that you can do?" Connor asked. I could feel everyone staring at me, well, everyone except Travis; he was out cold.

"I don't know, maybe. We have to get his shirt and jacket off so I can assess the damage." Connor wasted no time in undoing the buttons and just ripped off the shirt and jacket. Despite the situation, I couldn't help being distracted when I saw his stomach. He had a six-pack, and I felt myself blush. I'd seen boys with their shirts off before, I'd even seen him with his shirt off before, but for some reason it was different this time. Shaking my head, I looked up at his shoulder, there were three deep gashes that ran down the top portion of his arm, deeper at the shoulder and getting less so as they drifted down to his elbow. I pressed the fabric of his shirt down against the cut to slow the flow of blood and dribbled some nectar from my "Just in case" thermos (the Hecate cabin enchanted it to fit inside my wallet.) into his mouth.

"He should wake up sometime before tomorrow," I told them. "In the meantime we should try and get back to the hotel and pack up. Then we can go to camp."


	10. Chapter 10

Connor picked Travis up, draped him over his shoulder and we were off. I led as we ran back down to where the Gondola dock was and found, to my horror, the entire gondola system was covered in, yep. You guessed it: ice.

"What are we going to do?" Kia cried, she'd always been quite dramatic. "We're gonna…DIE!"

"Kia, we're not going to die. If Percy can wrestle Anteus, we can certainly get back to the hotel."

"Your friend Percy defeated Anteus?" Faith asked. "Isn't that the same guy that got trapped under a bookshelf?"

"Annabeth doesn't call him "Seaweed Brain" for nothing." Connor smiled at that.

"Once he tried to help us with a prank, a simple one at that, and he ended up completely covered in permanent yellow paint." We were all smiling now.

"If we're done bashing Percy, can we please figure out a way to get out of this?" I asked. As if by magic, the smiles disappeared.

"Hey is that an RV?" Jackson asked after a too-long silence. We all turned and looked in the direction he was pointing, there was most certainly a medium sized RV.

"Okay. That was not there ten seconds ago," Megan said. We all took off towards the it. The RV was large, white and there was a black stripe around the middle that went all of the way around. Jackson got there first and opened the door.

"Guys! It's not iced!" He yelled, opening the door.

"Well of course it's not dummy," Megan yelled back, "If it was, you'd be frozen."

"That's enough you two," Kia told them. The rest of us filed in the car and Connor set Travis down on one of the little beds in the back.

"Who wants to drive?" Connor asked.

"I don't think I can drive something this big," I told them.

"I can drive," Kia suggested. Nobody had a better idea so we let her take the wheel. Kia settled behind the wheel and waited for everybody else to sit down. Megan took a deck of cards out of her pocket. (It was one of those little mini decks; she always had it with her. It was the last gift her father gave to her before he left.) Her, Jackson and Faith settled in for a game. Connor and I sat down on either side of Travis. I got up to give Kia the signal to leave when Travis stirred. He reached his arm out and trapped me under it. I looked at Connor and he looked at me.

"What am I supposed to do?" I asked him.

"Don't look at me," Connor replied with a shrug. I eased his arm off of my lap and got up to talk to Kia.

"I think we're ready to go."

"Should I take us back to the hotel?"

"Yeah, that way we can get our bags before heading back to camp."

"'Kay, will do."

~~~~~~~~~~~~Page Break~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It took us a much longer time to get back to the hotel then it took us to come here in the first place. Kia got turned around no less then three times, and we had to go around the block twice since she missed the entrance to the hotel's driveway. I was the first out of the car, was it my imagination? Or was the snow thicker in one direction then in the other? And was there a girl standing in the middle of the snow?

"How do you want to do this? Somebody has to stay with Travis." Connor called out, I looked in his direction and looked back at the falling snow, but the strange girl was gone.

"We'll go first, you stay with Travis and Jack. When we get back you guys can go pack." The four of us girls walked (well, okay, speed walked. We would've ran but the ground was so icy we would have taken a miracle to go the forty meters from the driveway into the hotel without slipping) into the main lobby.

"Let's cut through the buffet place," Faith suggested. "I think it's faster." We followed Faith into the restaurant; As soon as we got in she stopped short.

"I'm going to kill that guy," Megan said angrily. Sitting in one of the tables was Josh, Faith's boyfriend Josh, and he was with another girl.

"Maybe they're just friends," Kia said, but of course; it was as if she jinxed it. The girl moved over from her side of the booth and sat in his lap. I looked over at Faith and I could see her heart breaking. Megan looked at Faith, pointed at Josh and said: "May I?" When Faith didn't answer she marched over to where Josh and that girl were sitting. As soon as he noticed her, his eyes got really wide, in a different circumstance it would have been almost funny.

"You are an asshole," Megan told him. She turned to the girl he was sitting with and said: "Don't waste your time on him, you're not his only girlfriend." The three of us brought the now shaking Faith out of the restaurant and into the elevator. It was a quiet walk up to the room, the only sounds were Faith's deep breaths.

"Woah," Kia said when we reached the room. The door was wide open and the carpet was wet. I took the lead and walked into the room. Standing in the middle of the room was a girl, she looked young, probably somewhere around our age. She had dark black hair, deep brown eyes, skin as pale as snow and an expression as tough as steel. There was a mini cloud above her and she appeared to be standing in the middle of a snowstorm. A snowstorm that was in the middle of our room. 

"Who are you?" I asked her. She glared at us and vanished, taking the snow with her as she went. I gathered the suitcases from the closet and we packed up. Everything was wet, but at that minute I only cared about getting my friends out of that hotel.

"Everybody ready?" I called out after about ten minutes.

"Yeah."

"You know it."

"As long as we…we don't cut through…the restaurant."

~~~~~~~~~Page break~~~~~~~~~~

We reached the car about five minutes later, and to my surprise Travis was outside waiting for us. He was leaning against the car, probably more for support than anything else, but as soon as he saw us he grinned.

"Katie," he called happily.

"Are you okay?" I called back, speeding up as i got closer to the RV.

"All thanks to you I've been told."

"I didn't do that much."

"That's not what Connor said."

"You guys should probably go and get your stuff now so we can leave."

"CONNOR! JACK!" Travis called into the RV. "They're back." Connor and Jackson came running out of the van.

"You're staying here," Connor told him. Well, I guess there's a first for everything…but both Stolls being responsible? "Katie will watch while we're gone."

"I'm not two, Connor, I don't need to be watched."

"You were unconscious ten minutes ago. You need to be watched." Before Travis could argue any more, Connor grabbed Jackson's hand and ran (speed walked) off towards the hotel. The five of us walked back inside the bus and started to put our bags in the above-head storage area. Kia sat down on one of the benches, and Megan and Faith resumed their game of B.S. Travis went to the bed in the back and laid down; I sat on the other side of the bed. Travis closed his eyes and was immediately asleep, so I left him and walked over to where Kia was sitting.

"You're sure that you don't mind driving again? It's a long trip."

"As long as you tell me where to go."

"Long Island."

"You want me to drive this thing to Long Island?"

"You can stop driving when you need to sleep. Connor or I will take over."

"Can't we just go to the airport?"

"In this weather?"

"Point taken."

"Katie, Kia, want us to deal you in?" Megan asked.

"Do it," Kia replied.

"Yeah me too," I said. We played B.S. for about three minutes, or until Connor and Jack burst in through the door.

"Anybody miss us?" Connor asked.

"Not really."

"No."

"Not even a little."

"I didn't even know you were gone."

"Thanks guys, thanks."


	11. Chapter 11

I set the GPS on Kia's phone to Long Island and we were off, rolling along in our RV down the icy road. I started to walk back towards the bedroom of the car, grabbing the seatbacks as I went for stability. We already had one injured demigod, we certainly didn't need two. I entered the bedroom to find Travis still sound asleep and Connor staring at the wall.

"Hey, we should be in New York in, I don't know, over a day. Proving we don't stop anyway. Did I miss anything back here?"

"Well Travis has been asking for you," Connor said bitterly.

"Connor, he's asleep."

"He talks in his sleep. It's all Katie this…. Kaaaatttieee." I don't blush, but I'm sure that if I did that's what I'd be doing right now.

"Maybe you misheard him." I offered, but as if on cue Travis mumbled:

"Katie."

"Maybe I should talk to him."

"Yeah maybe you should." Connor started to walk out of the room. "I'll just join the go-fish game." It might have been my imagination, but it sounded like he grumbled "Too busy with his new girlfriend for his brother," as he left the room.

I walked over to the side of the bed and put my hand on Travis's head, running my hand through his soft brown curls.

"Katie?" He called out again.

"Yes Travis, I'm here now." I heard him sigh and he snaked his arms around my waist. Gods, Travis Stoll was actually a giant toddler.

Lying on the bed with Travis I realized I was tired, fighting a hellhound takes a lot out of you. I slid down closer to Travis, snuggling into him a bit and started to drift off.

In my dream the girl from the snowstorm was outside, talking to the ground.

"Their forces are split, master. That stubborn old goat, can you believe he calls himself the king? Has listened to my suggestion, they are no longer interacting with their children. The scene changed. A Latino boy and a stunningly gorgeous girl were in a group with a bunch of other kids. They were on a bus, was that Gleeson Hedge with them? Suddenly my vision was obscured, when the mist cleared there was a boy sitting with them. He had blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes.

I slowly opened my eyes and found Travis lying next to me. His eyes were opened but his arm was still around me.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," he said when he noticed I was awake.

"Oh it's fine," I said sitting up. "We probably shouldn't sleep for too long. How is your arm feeling?"

"Good as new."

"That's good." Neither of us spoke for a minute, but the silence was more comfortable than awkward.

"I'm going to go check on the rest of them, want to come?" I asked after an immeasurable amount of time.

"Sure."

We walked to the front of the R.V. and found:

"Oh you cheated!" Megan yelled angrily.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Jackson replied.

"I asked you for a seven last turn, you mean to tell me that in between now and then you magically got one?"

"That would be correct, it's possible in Go-Fish you know," Jackson said innocently. So that was what they were fighting over? A game of Go-Fish?

"That seven is mine!" Megan yelled.

"Does it really matter who the seven…" Faith began, but Jackson's yelling cut her off.

"Nuh huh! The sevens belong to me! You're just mad because I'm winning." I looked at Travis and rolled my eyes. How many times had I yelled at him about his cheating habits? It must run in the family.

"I have an idea," Kia said from the front, interrupting the argument. "Why don't you watch a movie on Faith's laptop or oh, I don't know, something that won't cause you two to yell at each other. Do you know how annoying it is when somebody's trying to drive?" Everybody was quiet for a while, digesting Kia's wise words probably, but of course, with this group silence can only last for so long.

"I think we should see Up," Faith said.

"Why would we see Up?" I asked her. "It's so sad. I almost cried when I saw it the first time."

"Well it's the only movie I brought so… that kind of limits our options." We put the computer on the table and squished around it. I leaned against Travis. He put his good arm around me and I leaned my head on his chest. Connor raised an eyebrow and made a kissy face, so Travis gave him the finger, but if anybody else noticed anything out of the ordinary they didn't say anything.

"I'll get the popcorn," Megan announced.

"How do you have…"

"Nicked it from the hotel, don't you remember Faith? They had the fancy caramel kind." Megan got up and went to grab her suitcase from the closet.

"Which one did we put the suitcases in again Katie?" Megan asked.

"The one on the left I think," I answered. "Or was it the one on the right? Sorry, I don't remember." Megan opened the left closet.

"Guys come here quickly!" We got up and ran over to Megan. I was about to unclasp my leaf necklace/sword when I saw what was inside of the closet. There had to have been at least 200 DVDs. Sure, and R.V. that was either a gift from the gods or stolen from an unlucky tourist with an overlarge DVD collection. Why not. Certainly wouldn't be the weirdest thing to happen in my life.

"OOOh!" Megan squealed. "They have the first Twilight movie!"

"NO!" the rest of us screamed.

"We could always watch Nemo," Faith suggested.

"No, that movie always makes me cry," Megan said. What is it with Pixar movies and making people cry?

"What about Karate Kid?" Jackson asked.

"Connor made me watch it with him like seven times when it first came out," Travis said. "So I'll have to veto that one." The next ten minutes were spent in the same fashion. I flat out refused the second Star Wars movie, Jackson announced he'd sooner jump out of the car at top speed then watch Mean Girls, and Connor started laughing when Faith offered up Howl's Moving Castle. Suddenly, I noticed a shiny box in the back.

"Guys, I know what movie we're going to watch," I told them as I pulled out the box.


	12. Chapter 12

"Ghostbusters." At that suggestion everyone's faces light up. Megan popped the popcorn and the rest of us sat back down on the benches surrounding the table. Travis put his arm back around me. 

"Where should I put it?" she asked, which prompted a huge "Put it near us," and "No, over here" argument that went on for at least ten minutes and was only interrupted when Faith yelled:

"Guys be quiet the movie's starting!" I looked at the screen and sure enough, the opening credits had finished. Megan haphazardly set the popcorn down somewhere near the middle and squished onto the other bench.

When the movie was over I looked around, it was already dark out. 

"What time is it?" Connor asked sleepily. I looked down at my wrist-but my watch wasn't there. "About seven-thirty," Travis answered, holding my watch.

"Travis give that back!" I yelled.

"Here," he handed it to me and I put it back on my wrist.

"Is it really only seven-thirty?" Faith asked. "It feels so much later."

"I hear ya," Megan said.

"We have had a quite…hectic day," I reasoned. "I'm going to send an IM to camp, maybe Chiron or Annabeth know who the snow lady is."

"Snow lady?" Connor asked.

"When we went into our room there was a lady inside, she was standing in the middle of a snowstorm. And when we were in the parking lot I saw what appeared to be a lady in one of the corners, I think she might have been, well, watching us. And then even later when I was in the back I had a dream." Connor and Travis immediately turned serious, but Megan just laughed.

"Katie, it's just a dream. No need to be worried. Once I had a dream that Mr. Dean, my seventh grade band teacher was torturing our class, it never happened! Don't you remember, he was only there for half of the school year, he got a great job offer at some musical arts high school and we had Mr. Jenson for the rest of the year." I winced slightly at that, remembering that year. We all had to take an instrument to pass seventh grade and I played the clarinet. Mr. Dean had asked me to stay after class one day and…well, harpies make horrible band teachers.

"Megan, demigod dreams are different then mortal dreams," Travis said. "Katie, tell us what happened."

"That same girl was talking to the ground about how she convinced the king to stop talking to his kids." I wanted to add the part about kids on the bus, but something held me back. That blonde just seemed so familiar. I knew I'd never seen the others before today, but there was something about that boy…

"Talking to the ground?" Jackson asked.

"Yeah, or at least, that's how it seemed. Anyway, I'll be right back."

"I'll come with you," Travis said. I grabbed his hand and together we walked back towards the RV's bathroom. I pulled out a drachma and chanted: "O Iris, goddess of the rainbow, accept my offering. Show me Annabeth Chase, Camp Half-Blood." I threw the drachma in sink and immediately Annabeth was visible through the mist. She was in the middle of an Archery lesson, and was trying to get Percy to hit the target. So far, there were arrows sticking out of two trees, the "Archery" sign and multiple places in the ground. The only place that seemed to be arrowless was the target.

Percy noticed us first.

"Hey Wisegirl! Look behind you," he yelled.

"Nice try Seaweed Brain. That may work on some people, but not a Daughter of Athena. I know you're just trying to distract me so you can run back to your cabin."

"No, Annabeth really. Look behind you." She sighed and turned around. When she noticed us she smiled.

"Oh hi Katie. It's good to see you're still alive. What's up?"

"I was just wondering, do you know if there are any Goddesses that have a particular affliction with snow?"

"There are a few, why?" she asked. I told her about the snow lady and about my dream.

"I don't know, give me a bit to research it okay?"

"Were on our way to camp, we should get there tomorrow. Is that too soon?" 

"No, that should be perfect."

I wiped my hand through the message looked and Travis.

"What do you think?" I asked him.

"I think Percy's really terrible at archery. How do you get to be the Hero of Olympus if you can't even shoot a bow?"

"I meant besides the obvious Travis," I said rolling my eyes. "Who do you think snow lady is?"

"If Annabeth doesn't know how do you expect me to? She actually pays attention in class." I didn't have anything to say to that, so I just grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the bathroom and back into the main area of the RV.

"Kia, how are you doing? Do you need to sleep?" I asked her, the last thing we needed was to get in a car crash because our driver fell asleep.

"I am getting kind of tired," she answered. "Anybody want to take over?"

"I'll do it," Connor announced. Connor drove us the rest of the way. The rest of us took turns sleeping in the bed and napping on the benches.

Connor woke me up awhile later.

"Katie, Katie! Get up."

"Hmmm. Are we there yet?"

"Yeah. Come help me wake up the others." We woke up everybody else and grabbed our stuff from the closet that wasn't filled with DVDs. I walked up to the archway and said:

"I Katie Gardner, Daughter of Demeter give Faith Tanner, Kia Michaels and Megan Bandit permission to enter Camp Half-Blood."

"You forgot me," Jackson said.

"This is the final test, if you're a demigod you shouldn't need my permission." The seven of us walked through without incident. I ran down into the big house to try and find Chiron. I ran into his office and found Annabeth inside having what looked liked a serious chat with Chiron. He looked up and saw me.

"Katie, hello."

"Sorry I didn't mean to interrupt…"

"No it's fine, you should probably know about this. Travis, Connor, I know you're out there. Come on in." Once they entered Chiron started talking again. "Annabeth, do you want to tell them." She took a deep breath and began.

"He's missing. I kissed him goodnight after the campfire last night and he started to walk off towards his cabin, but when I went in to wake him up this morning he wasn't there. His bed was still made and I just don't know…" she started to ramble on nerviously.

"Annabeth, who's missing?" Travis asked.

"P-P-Percy!"


	13. Epilogue

"Hey Katie-Kat. Look what I found in the dresser," Travis called, holding up a brown leather journal. We were going through my dad's house. Travis and I had been dating since the winter of my seventeenth birthday, four years ago, and last week he'd asked me to move in with him, so here we were, going through my old room, searching for anything I might want to bring with me to our (gorgeous) new home.

"I packed the last of my bags and headed for the car. When I got outside I found my friends Faith Tanner and Kia Michaels waiting inside…" Travis read. "Katie, what is this?" I walked over and took the journal from him.

"Oh I know what this is! When I was seventeen I wanted to become an author, you know, write gardening books and such, so I kept a journal. I wrote it like a novel. Oh my gods, Travis. Do you know when that diary's from? It's from the winter trip to Keystone."

"The one with your friends and Jackson? He's a great head of the Hermes cabin by the way, he took over when we left for college."

"Yeah that trip. We have to bring this, half the things I wrote in there were insulting you."

I spent the next few days rereading the journal when I came to the end: Annabeth telling us about Percy's disappearance. I could remember what came next like it was yesterday. There were those few horrible days before Annabeth set out to find Jason, Piper, and Leo. Next came those even worse months before the Argo II was completed. I remembered the bumpy ride to camp Jupiter, the tearful "Percabeth" as the Aphrodite cabin had started calling them reunion, the horror of the War against Gaia. We had a record number of deaths that year, I lost three siblings, five if you counted children of Ceres. We still had a memorial every year in-Oh no. I quickly ran over and checked the calendar. Crap! July seventh. I ran out of the house, grabbing my keys and coat on the way. I hopped into my car-a BMW specially blessed by Demeter to be ecologically sound, and drove off towards Bloomingdales. I ran in through the special door (the owner of Bloomingdales is a demigod, we can buy anything there for free and get our own special dressing rooms) and directly into Reyna.

"Gods Katie, watch where you're going!" Reyna said with a small smile. I looked around, Annabeth, Reyna, Piper, Hazel, Clarisse and Thalia were already here, but Rachel was nowhere to be found. Figures that Rachel would be the other late one.

"Can you believe it's been four years since the Giant war?" Annabeth asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah. It feels like yesterday…" Piper began, but stopped when Rachel ran in, waving her arms.

"Sorry Sorry Sorry I was held up at work," Rachel explained. We immediately began catching up, even though we all lived in New York, (with the exception of Reyna, she lived in Tuscany for the year) we never got to see each other. I was busy with Travis and our new house upstate, not to mention my Landscaping Design Company. Annabeth and Percy got married years ago, he's a swim coach at NYU and she's the architect that redesigned, well, everything practically. Rachel took over her dad's company, turning it into one that helped the wild instead of hurting it. Thalia was still Artemis' lieutenant; it was weird looking at her. She should have been older then I was, but she still looked a day away from sixteen. Piper and Jason are engaged; the two of them are the biggest Hollywood couple since Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. Hazel's still with us, because she died so young the first time around the Gods gave her another chance at Elysium and Clarisse, well, she was a pro-wrestler, not like that was a surprise or anything. Her and Chris were getting married in fall.

"Can we just get the stupid dresses and get out of here?" Clarisse growled. "I can't believe that Chiron is making me wear a dress, so what we have to accept an award in front of all of the Gods." Chiron decided that because this was the 4th anniversary of the Giant war and the 5th anniversary of the Titan war we were going to have a gala. All of the old campers were coming back, and any current campers were invited. Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Jason, Leo, Hazel, Frank, and Piper were getting special awards, being the saviors of Olympus and all, and all of the old cabin heads were accepting awards in honor of their cabins.

"Girls, move out," Annabeth said, pointing at the door that lead to the main store. "Here's the plan. In half an hour we meet back here with dress options." We walked into the main store. Annabeth and Thalia stayed together, but the rest of us took out separate paths. I went to the area where I knew the BCBG Max Azria dresses were, if we didn't have to pay for it why not go a little extreme? And besides, in a magazine I saw the prettiest dress, hopefully I would be able to find it...

Half an hour later my green flower power watch (a gag gift from Travis) beeped. I grabbed the four dresses that I'd found and made my way back towards the dressing room. When everyone arrived Annabeth started to make a plan.

"I say that one of us tries on their dresses at a time. That way the rest of us can stay prepared if anything bad happens, there's nothing harder then fighting a monster while changing out of a fancy dress-trust me, I know from experience."

"Sounds good Bethy," Thalia said. "Who wants to go first?" Hazel volunteered Piper, being the movie star she was, trying on dresses was practically in the job description. Piper walked into the dressing room and emerged a few minutes later. She was wearing a taupe and black colorblocked dress that looked amazing against her tanned skin tone.

"I don't even want to try on another one," she announced happily. "Okay Annabeth, your turn." She grabbed her dresses, and walked into the dressing room. The first two dresses she tried on weren't right, one was much too colorful and the other would only be acceptable if your name was Drew. The third however was awesome, it was gray and fit her in all of the right places. It had a long, flowy skirt, a halter neck and an almost corset-like bodice. It was just the right color to match her eyes. Thalia went next, then Clarisse, Rachel, Hazel, and Reyna. To be honest, I started zoning out.

"Katie it's your turn."

"Oh sorry I wasn't paying attention." I grabbed the four dresses and walked into the changing room. I stated to put on the first one, but as soon as I got it on I hated it. It had a V-neck that went down way too far. I put on the next one and stepped outside. The dress was blue-green and absolutely perfect in every sense of the word. It was draped in the style of a greek chemise, but it was short and the straps were twisted in the back to created a sort of cage-like effect. The others started nodding enthusiastically as soon as i got outside of the dressing room; I guess they liked it as much as I did. I went back inside and changed back into my normal clothes. We grabbed the dresses we wanted and "paid" at the desk.

The night of the Gala Thalia invited us all into the Artemis cabin to get ready, as we'd all stayed over the night before and it was the only unoccupied cabin. Piper curled our hair, with the exception of Clarisse, Hazel and Annabeth. Annabeth and Hazel had naturally curly hair and were getting it straightened for the occasion and Clarisse threatened punch anyone who went near her with the "invention straight from the depths of Tartarus." About an hours later we were completely ready. We walked out of the Artemis cabin joined our respective tables. The Heroes, (The special ones that got their own awards) sat at the main table. Chiron, The Big Three, Persephone, Amphitrite, and Hera sat at one table, the rest of the gods sat at another, and the parents of the people at the 'Hero' table sat at yet another. Paul and Sally's daughter Lily sat in between the two of them. There weren't assigned seats for the rest of us, so Thalia, Reyna, Clarisse, Chris, Travis, Connor, and I sat together. The ceremony lasted for about two hours, but it only took about three minutes for Travis and Connor to get bored. When the service was over and the food long gone, the crowd started to disperse. I went with the current head of the Demeter cabin, a sixteen-year-old named Daisy Jenson, and my sister Miranda to hang our award on the wall inside of the big house.

"Hey Katie Kat. Want to take a walk?" Travis asked after we were done.

"Sure." We walked over towards the beach; it really was beautiful. Travis had his hand in his pocket and he seemed really nervous.

"Look at the moon," he said suddenly, pointing at the gorgeous crescent moon. I stared at it and turned back to face him, but he wasn't there. I looked down and saw him on one knee, holding up a black box.

"Katie, I love you. Will you marry me?"


End file.
